


Alphys Reviews Slayers IV

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, F/F, Fiction, Human/Monster Society, Mentioned Asgore - Freeform, Mentioned Flowey, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: Alphys reviews a new video game with two monster characters.
Relationships: Alphys/Undyne (Undertale)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Alphys Reviews Slayers IV

**Author's Note:**

> Note: "Slayers IV" is a fictional video game, with nothing to do with real works called "Slayers".

“In conclusion, _Slayers IV_ is utter _garbage_.”

Alphys breathed in, finally taking a rest from her twenty-minute tirade. She stood proudly, a little smile on her face, in the garish little room.

It was then she noticed Undyne’s face: her furrowed brows, her fins frozen outward, and her jaw dropped.

 _That passion_ ...Undyne thought. _I never knew it could be so..._

Undyne smacked her lips, setting her jaw back into place. She sat up on the couch, looking to the side for a moment.

“Well....” Undyne started. “There... _are_ ways to avoid Shella and Garrut. You don’t gotta use them.”

Alphys looked at her with dismay. “It doesn’t matter! They’re still _there!_ How could they make monsters look so terrible?”

Undyne breathed in. “I mean...the game was _nearly done_ when they... got the news monsters came back.”

“Then they should have _delayed_ it! Making monsters look so bad just...just...” Alphys looked down, shaking her head, a strained, distant look in her eyes. “It’s unacceptable! So, like I said, _Slayers IV_ is just _garbage_!”

Undyne set her palms on her knees, looking down onto the carpet as she braced herself.

 _I could...I could always_ lie.

Undyne’s eyes opened wide. _No! No! I won’t build a relationship on lies! Not any more!_ She breathed in, unclenched her fists, and sat up straight. _Lying is just not the hero thing to do._

“You know, Alphys,” Undyne stated slowly, holding her gaze at Alphys. “I’m...like Garrut.”

“The werewolf guy in the game?! No, you’re not!” Alphys rapidly shook her head. “He’s bloodthirsty! And...and you’re too _kind_ to be like him!”

“I’m pretty...passionate....myself,” Undyne said. “And, uh....kind of bloodthirsty, I guess? I did try to murder Frisk once.”

“But that’s different! You know it! It was to free everyone, b-because you’re l-like that!” Her stuttering came back in again. 

Undyne’s mouth flexed. _What happened to Alphys?_ she thought. “You know I wasn’t justified. It was wrong. But, more to the point....Garrut knows he’s scary. That’s...inconvenient sometimes. I get it. _I’m_ scary. And sometimes, it’s cool to make people jump! But...uh...sometimes I try to act like him.”

“..y-you don’t want to eat the unconscious bodies of your enemies...” Alphys asked. “Do you?”

“Oh, no! He knows he’s scary and tries to crack jokes about it.” Undyne tilted her head. “Y’know, to lighten the mood?”

“And about that whole ‘eating unconscious enemies’ thing.... Remember, they were sent to clear out the museum of the gross snot-goblins that were on the Millennium Plate. The leader said something like, ‘Ugh! How are we going to clean this up?’ and Garrut said something like...‘Shall I lick the Plate clean?’”

Undyne paused. The awkward silence stretched on as Alphys stared.

“It’s a dog joke. ‘Cause he’s a werewolf.” The awkward pause stretched out even more. “’Cause, he’s...uh...offering to literally lick the Millennium Plate? Yeah, he’s not good at telling jokes. The leader guy didn’t pick up on that, either.”

“But what about the catgirl, Shella?” Alphys said with distaste.“She still flirts at everyone with _zero_ shame!”

“Oh, those flirts weren’t _serious_ ,” Undyne replied. “It was all just practice, to gain more confidence.”

“Practice for what?”

“Her..girlfriend in the Catfolk Village?”

“There’s n-no Catfolk Village. A-and, anyway, that’s ridiculous! She flirts with _men_.”

“She’s bi.”

Alphys said nothing.

“Anyway, I guess you missed the Catfolk Village because it was an optional side area. FlowerFreak only does speedruns, and you only saw their videos, rather than playing the game.”

Alphys grimaced as her eyes cast downward, and she interlaced her claws.

Undyne leaned forward, hands on her knees again. Something was _off_.

“You...aren’t normally this angry at humans,” Undyne said slowly. “This isn’t just about video games any more, is it?”

“It’s all part of a pattern...w-when I was walking back through Ebott Park from the science conference, I saw...the statue.” Alphys’ voice went soft. “ ‘ _Attacking the Monster_ ’ _._ Those human sculptures, they...they were posed to attack Asriel.”

_The sun dipped towards the horizon, slowly turning the sky orange. Tiredness pulled on Alphys’ body as plodded through the park.’s shortcut. Everything went well at the conference, but..._

_She stopped._

_An enormous horned monster — no, a_ statue _of a monster—stood at the center of the park, surrounded by human statues. The statue was snarling...but not at her. Alphys impulsively checked the direction of the monster’s gaze: the human statues. They gazed back at the monster statue with stern mouths and resolute expressions. One statue reached at its hip._

_In the monster’s huge arms was a bundle, bronze cast to look like cloth. Hair—bronze-cast human hair—peeked out from the bronze-cloth._

_What...what_ is _this_?

“ _Oh, that’s ‘Attacking the Monster!’ the human woman said cheerily. Alphys wondered how long she had stood there, standing as still as the statues themselves. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s a big part of Ebottville’s heritage!”_

_Alphys froze, eyes wide._

_The horned statue seemed to glare and snarl even more. Suddenly its eyes and mouth filled with an orange light._

_The woman stared at Alphys._

“ _Are you alright?_

“ _Y_ _-yes! Totally fine! I-I just have an errand to run!” Alphys backed away...and ran._

“Asriel?! That’s who it is?!”

Alphys’s voice rose up back to normal. “It _must_ be. It’s the face and the horns: it’s _definitely_ a Boss Monster of some sort.”

 _Really? The monster’s not a monster from the first war carrying a hairy loaf of bread?_ Undyne thought. _Uh..better not say that._

Alphys shook her head and gave a quick little wave of her hand. “Well...it doesn’t matter whether it was Asriel or not. That human I met there was... _really_ proud of that horrible statue, and said it was....” Alphys’ voice went soft again. “...was ‘part of Mt. Ebott’s heritage’.” 

“That’s ‘cause it was made by Magnolia Chang. It was her first major work!”

Alphys’ head perked up. “What? Who is s-she?”

“The sculptor? Magnolia Chang?” Undyne waved a hand. “The one who made sculptures of bronze decades ago?” Alphys stared blankly.

“Well, she’s a really big deal! She made lots of bronze statues with special effects and got really famous! And everybody knew she was born near Mt. Ebott and came here ‘cause of her! The whole M. Chang Art Museum was made because of her, and it’s now a big tourist attraction!”

The pause stretched on for two seconds, and Alphys’s lips twitched as she struggled to respond. _Is this how fictional characters feel when they listen to exposition dumps?_ “I-I didn’t know you were into art, Undyne.”

“What? Nah. I just did some bodyguard duty for that dragon artist who apologized all the time. We were at the new Monster Art wing of the museum, and I got really bored, so...I read their history plaques!”

“But they’re p-proud of hurting monsters.” Alphys said weakly.

“It’s...yeah. An...unpleasant...statue.” Undyne looked distant. “Knowing what we do about how it _really_ happened, it’s hard to not feel sad about it. And we weren’t even there....” Undyne looked down, her eyes lidded. “I don’t know what Asgore thinks.”

“But I don’t think that human woman said things right. Magnolia Chang _did_ make some later sculptures where monsters _weren’t_ bad guys.” Undyne shrugged. “They’re not accurate, but she didn’t exactly have live reference.”

“W-we’ll still get hurt,” Alphys said quietly. “the _S-slayers_ game has humans kill _h-hundreds_ of monsters, like it’s _nothing_. A-and...and I think that appeals to humans."

Sadness weighed on Alphys’ face, as she crossed her arms and started to coil her tail.

“A-and those anti-monster politi—”

Suddenly two arms wrapped around Alphys’ chest, squeezing her tightly.

“Hey. You don’t have to play it, if you don’t want to.”

Undyne continued. “I know life on the Surface is a lot more complicated than anyone thought. And, believe me, _I’m_ annoyed by those jerks too!! But...there are good humans, Alphys. You know that. And I like to think more about _them_ than the jerks. _Those_ people aren’t worth brain space.”

With a grunt, Undyne let go of Alphys, rose from her kneeling position, and sat on the couch. Alphys opened her mouth, fumbling for words...and shut it again. She sat down, gazing absently into the distance. Something still weighed down on her face.

Slowly, she shifted onto Undyne’s lap and curled up her tail.

A few quiet minutes passed in the garish little room. Finally, Alphys spoke.

“Why...did you even bring up the game?”

“Well, it’s got good gameplay, and I wanted to try the new multiplayer mode. I thought we could...you know...” Undyne shrugged. “Spend the whole night playing video games together.” Undyne gave a big toothy grin, as if nothing was wrong. “But it’s okay!! We can find something else to do!!”

“N-no.”

“Huh?”

“I-it’s okay. I....think I should give the game a chance. Even if its monster representation is clumsy, I...I don’t think they really _hated_ us. N-not any more.”

Undyne shrugged and blinked, then got up from the couch and rummaged through her inventory. Bringing out the game, she plugged it into the TV. “Yeah. You’re right: making Garrut a wolf only for half his attacks was a bad idea. He should have been a cool wolf dude _all_ the time.”

With a final channel adjustment, Undyne muttered: "Eh. Maybe they'll fix it in the sequel." Sitting back down with Alphys, she picked up a controller and handed one to her. Alphys breathed in. As the game started, a panoramic view of a landscape lit up the screen. 

“Anyway...” Undyne started. “the Croco Dancers remind me of you.”

“...th-the really attractive y-yellow dinosaur things?” “Yep!”

Alphys smiled as she pressed ‘start’. “1 star. _Only_ for the Croco Dancers.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This work was made with the beta-reading judgment of [Ihasafandom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihasafandom/pseuds/Ihasa) and [Batter-Sempai.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batter_sempai/pseuds/batter_sempai)
> 
> Originally posted on my [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/). Feel free to comment on this article there or here.
> 
> This work was inspired by the theme of modern human-monster relations in ["Things Anti-Monster Politicians Could Do"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22175011/chapters/52937284%22)and ["Undertale: The Perils of Being Literally Not Human"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841891). Please check them out: they could use more attention.


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